Saving Private Ryan by Curtis Edmonds -- blueduck@hsbr.org
Steven Spielberg is, perhaps, the greatest technical moviemaker of our time. He has made us believe in dinosaurs, extra-terrestrials, and that the Ark of the Covenant could melt Nazis. The hallmark of Spielberg movies is that he makes you believe you are there -- whether it's a ruined Egyptian temple or a concentration camp in Poland or a raptor-ridden tropical island. Every scene, every shot, tells us that this is happening, right now, for real. Only the best Hollywood illusionists -- say James Cameron's painstaking recreation of the Titanic, or Ron Howard's extraordinary weightless Apollo capsule -- can be ranked with Spielberg in terms of sheer technical prowess.
However, just as someone can make a great cabinet without there being anything inside, someone can be a great technical moviemaker without making great movies. And Spielberg's last two movies weren't great. Although the dinosaur action in The Lost World was better rendered than in Jurassic Park, the plot was a lifeless retread of the original dino-classic. Both the historical detail and the action scenes in Amistad were outstanding, but the plot bogged down in legalistic courtroom psychodrama. From a technical standpoint, there wasn't anything wrong with either of these two movies -- but they didn't live up to the high standard that Spielberg has set for himself.
There was every reason to anticipate that the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan -- the invasion of Omaha Beach by the Third Ranger Battalion on June 6, 1944 -- would be a technical masterpiece. And so it is. Veterans who were there say that Spielberg does a good job in recreating the horror and agony of the Normandy invasion, and there can be no higher praise. Spielberg conveys the heroism and the confusion of the landing spectacularly well, even recording some of the shots himself with a hand-held herky-jerky camera. With the resources of his own studio behind him, and with Tom Hanks to serve as a visual anchor, Spielberg has created one of the great war scenes in film history.
The "cabinet" of the movie is great. The war scenes, while less spectacular than the Omaha landing, are intricate and stunningly well-designed, just as if Spielberg had personally placed every chunk of rubble and debris in its proper place. The set design is fantastic -- they even manage to recreate an authentic World War II glider, although the originals were mostly smashed to bits on landing. But what makes Saving Private Ryan a great movie isn't the box the movie comes in. This movie turns out to be bigger than its box. Saving Private Ryan is special because the story outshines even the quality of the filmmaking.
The story is simple: Private James Ryan (Matt Damon) has lost two brothers in the Normandy landing, and a third in the Pacific the week before. He is to be found and taken home to comfort his grieving mother. However, Ryan dropped behind enemy lines with an Airborne division which was scattered behind enemy lines like so many spilled needles. Hanks, his top sergeant (Tom Sizemore) and a small crew must infiltrate the German lines, find the lost soldier, and return him safely home.
The quest for Ryan is accompanied by a long string of philosophizing about the mission, punctuated by small-scale combat. Hanks and his crew don't like their task and don't appreciate the implication that Ryan's life is somehow worth more than theirs. This makes the movie sound a bit talky, I know, but Saving Private Ryan frames its discussion of these issues as real-life morality plays: What's the duty of a soldier to non-combatants? Is it OK to shoot prisoners? Is one man's life worth sacrificing your own?
In doing so, Saving Private Ryan focuses on the Big Issues -- life, love, sacrifice, honor, courage (and cowardice), death, defiance, and duty. By focusing on these issues, Spielberg transcends the conventions of the war movie -- both as action movie and as horror movie. Although some of the excitement of combat and most of the horror of war are displayed, the movie really isn't about either. It's a celebration of values -- and war movies should be about values, because the strains of war places those values in sharp relief.
(And one of the things that separates Saving Private Ryan from the other summer blockbusters it is that we can argue what the movie is really about. Try doing that with Armageddon.)
One thing that no one will argue with is the quality of the performances. Damon, so good as the cocky genius Will Hunting and the sincere fledgling trial attorney in The Rainmaker, has a limited role, but he doesn't allow the symbolism of his character to interfere with his effective portrayal of a scared Iowa farmboy. Sizemore is not so much of an actor as he is a medium, bringing back the shades of all the sergeants from every World War II movie ever put on celluloid. The rest of the squad seemingly falls into patterns -- wise guys from Brooklyn, sharpshooter farmboys, sensitive writer -- but the young actors breathe new life into all the old stereotypes. The images of these actors -- the frozen, heartbroken countenance of Jeremy Davies, the hard stare of Edward Burns, the cracker drawl and sharp eye of Barry Pepper -- are the ones that will stay with you long after the last reel ends. (Especially Adam Goldberg, who confronts a line of German prisoners with the mocking call, "Juden! Juden!" as he fingers his Star of David.)
And Hanks? If his competition so far is Jim Carrey's leaden performance in the dismal Truman Show, we can declare the Oscar race over now. There won't be a better performance this year by anybody. The American soldier is first and foremost a citizen, and Hanks uses his Everyman quality to fill this ideal perfectly. He's a hard-bitten combat veteran with the eyes and spirit of a scared recruit -- but he's a formidable and brave leader. He's able to exhibit a fuller emotional range here than he did as the muffled Forrest Gump or the steely-eyed missile man of Apollo 13, which contributes mightily to the power of the film.
Saving Private Ryan is a fitting tribute to the virtues we hold dear and to the men of our armed forces who exhibit these virtues in war and peace. As I said, no higher praise is needed.
Rating: A+
-- Curtis Edmonds blueduck@hsbr.org
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